Throne out: Blackhawks eliminate Kings from playoffs

CHICAGO -- The champions weren’t about to skate off quietly into the night.

And the Stanley Cup champion Kings did all they could to prolong it as long as possible, on guts and fumes, as they lost, 4-3, in double overtime in Game 5 of the Western Conference finals on Saturday night at United Center.

It was the longest game in Kings history and it took the completion of Patrick Kane’s hat trick to end it at 11:40 into the second overtime. The last hat trick to clinch a berth in the finals was in 1993 — the Kings’ Wayne Gretzky against Toronto.

BOX SCORE: Blackhawks 4, Kings 3 (2 OT)

The two faces of Chicago’s franchise, Kane and Jonathan Toews, combined on a two-on-one for the winner. Kane finished it off with a shot from the right circle, beating Kings goalie Jonathan Quick.

A pinch by Kings defenseman Slava Voynov let the Hawks get the outnumbered attack as Bryan Bickell beat him to the puck and chipped it into open ice for Toews to skate down.

“You just play hockey in June to win,” Kings forward Justin Williams said. “When you get this far, to not have a chance to defend it, is frustrating. “I can’t stand looking at somebody else raising the Cup. And now we’re going to have to do it.”

The longest game for the Kings had been on May 11, 1993 in the second round against Vancouver when Gary Shuchuk’s goal gave them a 4-3 victory over the Canucks.

The Blackhawks will meet the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup Final, an Original Six showdown.

It was an stirring finish to a wild series of events near the end of regulation. The Kings were less than 10 seconds away from playoff elimination and the player wrenching them out of the abyss, for a bit, was none other than center Mike Richards.

Richards probably would not have been playing had this been anything other than an elimination game, recovering from a concussion suffered a week ago here.

Richards scored with 9.4 seconds remaining in regulation, deflecting an Anze Kopitar shot past Chicago goalie Corey Crawford to send it into overtime. The shot appeared to go off the leg of Richards, and his expression of celebration was priceless, the moment deflating the sellout crowd.

“It’s a dirty goal and those are the types of goals we score as a team,” Kings captain Dustin Brown said. “That’s the great thing about a lot of guys in the room, regardless of their health situation, they’re willing to put themselves on the line. I don’t say that lightly.”

Richards was not the only injured King. Williams revealed afterward he had been playing with a separated shoulder, suffered in the San Jose series, and Brown had a torn knee ligament, also against the Sharks, hampering his mobility.

Defenseman Drew Doughty also had been playing on a bad ankle since the first round against St. Louis.

“It would start to feel better and then I would reinjure it,” he said. “There’s not a single guy on this team who wasn’t injured at some point of the playoffs. That’s what playoff hockey is. You’ll take anything for your team.”

After Kane gave the Blackhawks a 3-2 lead with 3:52 left in the third period, the Kings were having major difficulty in getting Quick off for an extra attacker. They were finally able to do so with 14.4 seconds left when Bickell iced the puck.

Jarret Stoll won the draw from Toews in the right circle. Center Jeff Carter tapped the puck back to Voynov, who didn’t like what he saw in the lane and found Kopitar along the wall.

Richards, who suffered a concussion late in Game 1, had been doubtful a day ago. His progress almost mirrored the Kings in Game 5.

Their chances of pushing this beyond Saturday seemed doubtful after they trailed 2-0 within the opening 5:59. It started to unravel on a long-range blast on the first goal, by defenseman Duncan Keith, not Quick’s finest moment, as the shot beat him between the legs. When Kane made it 2-0, at 5:59, retired NHLer Mike Modano tweeted: “It’s over.”

Not quite.

The Kings clawed their way back with a short-handed goal by Dwight King, at 9:28 of the second period, and Kopitar tied it at 2-2 on the power play at 3:34 of the third.

Lisa.dillman@latimes.com

Twitter.com/reallisa